Oh yes, today marks exactly five years since the release of Rise Up Forgotten, Return Destroyed, and, with it, the birth of Bad Elephant Music as an entity.
I don't think any of us, back in 2013, anticipated where this little project was going. If you'd told me back then that, in five years' time, we'd have this many releases in our catalogue and this many talented musicians on our roster, I'd have given you, at the very least, a cautious side-eye. Watching BEM develop, at first from the outside, then from the inside as a copywriter, and eventually across social media, was fascinating. It wasn't a meteoric rise to fame, more a progression of being quietly impressed every couple of months when we hit some milestone or signed some new artist or picked up a juicy nugget of press attention. But, looking back now with the benefit of being able to chart a complete course, all those milestones really do add up.
We released two albums in 2013: the aforementioned Rise Up Forgotten and Spooky Action. We're proud to have both Simon Godfrey and The Fierce & The Dead still with us, still producing fantastic music, from Simon's multifarious projects with Valdez and as himself to TFATD's The Euphoric, which has become something of a crossover breakthrough this year. 2017 saw fifteen major releases, and this year looks set to keep the same pace, with eight albums already out and several more in the pipeline. Again, this pace - more than one release every month - was unthinkable when we started this venture, but, as the BEMpire (ooh, I like that, I think I'll keep using it) has grown, so too has our capacity and our audience.
There was one thing, though, of which we were absolutely certain, even back in 2013. We knew that Simon Godfrey was not done with Shineback.
Dial will be released on 14 September, 2018. It's a new full-length album from Shineback, this time a full collaboration between Godfrey and long-time cooperator and enabler Robert Ramsay. It comes with a star-studded lineup of special guests, including BEM alumni Dec Burke (Audioplastik), Matt Stevens, Joe Cardillo (Valdez), and Daniel Zambas (We Are Kin), and many more listed in full on the album page. Yes, there's an album page, and yes, you can preorder from it right now.
You'll note that the page doesn't have a tracklist yet. But, if you think we're going to tease you like this and leave you without any new music, you are sorely mistaken. See, during the Dial sessions, Simon recorded an extra song specifically to celebrate BEM's fifth birthday. It's called 'We Rescue', and we'd like to share it with you here.
And, if that's whetted your appetite as much as it did ours, you can buy 'We Rescue' as a digital single here, naming your own price.
Happy birthday indeed, Bad Elephant Music. Here's to more independent sounds for independent souls.
Status Update
We've had a couple of releases in the past couple of weeks that are worth spotlighting: Exo-Oceans, sold in partnership with Andy Tillison's solo project Kalman Filter, and Old Town, an EP from Evenflow, a joint project by Stuart Stephens (Whitewater) and Mike Kershaw. Both these albums are available from the BEM webstore.
Unidentified Dying Objects is now less than three weeks away - to get it right on time and avoid disappointment (as well as getting the preview track 'The Hunter's Last Stand' immediately), preorder now.
Review Roundup
Rather than actual reviews, this week we're bringing you a couple of mid-year top lists that feature BEM artists. The Progressive Aspect's best of 2018 so far features Mothertongue and The Fierce & The Dead, while the latter got in at #29 on Louder's top 50 of the first half of 2018! Congratulations are in order to both bands.
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